What is cy­clopia?

Cy­clopia is a com­pli­cated and rare form of holo­pros­en­cephaly. This con­di­tion af­fects how the front of the brain di­vides while the foe­tus is de­vel­op­ing. Some kids with this con­di­tion have very few prob­lems and sig­nif­i­cant brain func­tion, but in cy­clopia, the eyes have not de­vel­oped nor­mally, nor has the nose. In­stead of two eyes, ba­bies born with this may have a sin­gle eye al­most in the mid­dle of the face (like the myth­i­cal cy­clops) and a nose that doesn’t func­tion well, is nearly ab­sent, and may be lo­cated above the eye in­stead of be­low it.

Most ba­bies with this dis­or­der don’t sur­vive and they may have other se­vere de­fects that would make sur­vival dif­fi­cult, in­clud­ing se­ri­ously mal­formed hearts. When these chil­dren do sur­vive, they may re­quire some re­con­struc­tive surgery if pos­si­ble.

It is not only hu­mans that can have trou­ble with cy­clopia. It oc­curs very of­ten in an­i­mal pop­u­la­tions. There are re­ports of kit­tens be­ing born with it regularly. In­vari­ably the kit­tens tend not to sur­vive and usu­ally are ei­ther born dead or die within the first few hours of life. A few peo­ple have sur­vived with cy­clopia, but it is rare. Con­cerns ex­ist about qual­ity of life for the per­son who does beat the odds and is able to live with the con­di­tion.